WHY INDIANS HAVE SO MANY FESTIVALS?

Modern societies and the societies we live in today are very much open. Open, in what sense? Open with respect to access of desirable resources of consumption and hence enjoyment. Last night, When I went for a running spree kind of enjoyment with my friends for Dusshera, I found the same. What I noticed that my friends, especially a fellow named Nitesh, the urge to enjoy is so much. He doesn't stand still. He says one thing and then next and then next, never to stop. This puts people around, especially me, in so much pressure. The whole hype around festivals and the almost forced enjoyment on these festivals are a recent phenomenon to me. Most consumption-based societies, as their consumption grows in terms of both food and entertainment, tend to show this kind of behavior. The constant wish to have more crowds, more people shouting, more lights and more sound and hence more sound pollution is common. 

The problem I see in this, is Enjoyment should be passively experienced. One should not push oneself to enjoy. Your calm mind should just be a little tickled with the small cheerful lights of Dusshera. If you are putting effort to crack a joke, have to demean something to let a laugh come, this shows the saddening situations of the mental health of current youth. 

The current youth, the case studies being my friends, I find them desperate for a little ounce of fun that they can extract from us being together. The loneliness in their lives have started to get to them. The defenses that they employ are no longer healthy, they cannot take a joke on their lives, they cannot joke back on their circumstances, they go about either ignoring or suppressing. This is classical behavior of worsening mental health. 

The roots of enjoyment in humans stems of the pleasure principle given by Freud. It states, human beings strive to maximize pleasure howsoever big. But the problem with this is that the wish to enjoy, if not fulfilled at regular intervals, turns into a desperation to enjoy which at times is saddening. 

Another angle here is the angle of misplaced concerns. The unwillingness to confront realities, and to accept that at the age of 24 or 25, and still living co-dependently of your parents, makes them value other things like, Whether I have put cologne or not, Do I look good as compared to my friends or not? These concerns are a case of misplaced concerns. Where you should have your does not care attitude when among friends, you are over the top concerned how to conduct, how to live, how to dress. The brain had to relax among your peers and be alert when focusing on profession or studies, the reverse seems to be happening. 

The constant urge to be on social media and to let other people see something happening on it, is a symptom of the same. The inability to live with the feeling that "today, nothing special happened", seems to be missing in these people. 

I ask this question. Is this just a local my circle phenomena or is it a pan-India thing? Do Indians have so many festivals because we are people who are intrinsically desperate to enjoy? The answer requires and socio-historic analysis. 

Indians, on an average, celebrate 2 festivals every month. The processions, the worships, the celebrations, what's up with that? How does a society, so divided among castes and gender hierarchies manages to come together to celebrate festivals? I think Festivals are part of collective defense mechanism, societies tend to use, in order to escape from the brutal realities of life. Festivals give meaning to a group. You will find a common feature among all festivals in India. They are full of meanings. This behavior is typical of a society that is constantly suffering from a crisis of meaning. To supplement this crisis with forced meaningfulness, we have festivals. 

Historically also, this society focused on collective psyche and people should not get depressed. Tulsidas, writing Ramcharitmanas, to motivate the Hindus about good days to come is an example of that. But he could also not escape the fact that Hindus never have threats from outside. It is an intrinsically a divisive society which constantly wishes to categories people into castes and all and wishes to assign them roles. The fact that Tulsidas was not allowed to write and sit among Brahmins, and he had to sit in a mosque and write it shows that Muslims of that time had more tolerance to a poet of other caste than Hindus themselves. 

Anyhow, the fact remains, Hindus compensate a lot for their Nihilism and lack of meaning of their lives and the fact is they live in an unloving environment, divided by caste so that they need festivals every now and then to feel united and feel enjoyment. 

To talk of my friends, they need to seriously consider life outside this shithole we call "Patratu" and understand that enjoyment does not require effort. It requires patience. Enjoyment comes and goes. It is just a part of life. Do not beg for it. Do not be desperate for it.